


Light In the Dark

by slytherinmayflower



Category: Carmilla - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Carmilla was pregnant as Mircalla, Carmilla-centric, Child Murder, F/F, F/M, I don't know if I'd call them graphic..., Internalised Homophobia, The Dean is a real bitch, depictions of violence, descriptions of torture, like seriously, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 18:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10496919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slytherinmayflower/pseuds/slytherinmayflower
Summary: *Disclaimer; this summary will suck :)" Mircalla had never meant for this to happen. But certainly, it is with the bare minimum of intent that most things happen and now is no different...She is glad to be alone in this moment, even if the silence curls around her with enough weight to suffocate her – she just needs a moment to comprehend the truth she had so readily assumed. She is nearing eighteen, the un-wed daughter of the cruel but noble Count with not even a single suitor awaiting her hand.And she is pregnant."(Or the one where barely anything follows Canon, Carmilla and her best friend were really bad at dealing with their feelings in 1698 and thought screwing each other was the answer and so shit happens - before the Dean gets her and then more stuff happened and she learns to accept the past and move on - in super dramatic fashion.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> German was done with Google Translate because I don't know German. I did not proof read this and I did this in one continuous stream over several hours so forgive me.

Mircalla had never meant for this to happen. But certainly, it is with the bare minimum of intent that most things happen and now is no different.

The doctor is quietly shuffled away from her by her nurse, discretely sent from her room in the faint morning light; his wife swearing him to secrecy as he leaves. He is a good man, Mircalla knows, just like his wife is a good woman, a kind person – but their loyalty to her will only go so far. Her father will find out, somehow, and she knows it will be their tongues that slip lest they be cut from their mouths for their deceit.

She is glad to be alone in this moment, even if the silence curls around her with enough weight to suffocate her – she just needs a moment to comprehend the truth she had so readily assumed. She is nearing eighteen, the un-wed daughter of the cruel but noble Count with not even a single suitor awaiting her hand.

And she is pregnant.

\---

Jakob Bauer is a good man, though he is much more a boy than a man, just as she is more a girl than a woman. They did not like each other as they were expected and were more friends than anything else, but they had lain with each other in desperation. Mircalla had a far too wandering eye and Jakob was stiff with unrepentant feeling and the two had confided their problems and hoped that perhaps a taste of the opposite sex would rid their craving for their own.

It hadn’t.

Instead they were both faced with the disgust their actions evoked in themselves and now here was the result – a child.

Mircalla knows life is precious, especially during this time of war, but she is so distraught that she cannot bear to appreciate the growing warmth in her being, the small light coming into existence; she is far too concerned with the how and the repercussions thereof.

They do not love each other as lovers should, but there is enough love that they can do more than bear each other, appreciate their bond and their presence. They know each other’s struggles and accept them, they lift each other up and Jakob is the only boy who does not objectify her; who sees her wit and kindness and her brilliance more than he sees the beauty of her face and the curve of her body.

She knows the instant that she tells him, what will happen and she is relieved that if it is anyone, it’s Jakob that she will walk this line with.

\---

It’s as expected;

He holds her hand as she daintily pats at her dampened cheeks, her relief and her struggle palpable even as he proposes to her. He’s her best friend and she cannot help but regret that he’s forever tied to her even as she is selfishly glad for it. She would not survive without Jakob.

“For always, Mircalla,” he tells her passionately, “I’m here for you.”

He knows she fears her father’s harshness, the way he only truly sees her worth as what he will gain when he gives her away, and promises to help her conceal it.

“We’ll tell them we’re in love,” he suggests, linking their fingers together and pressing a kiss to her forehead as she curls into his side, her own hand resting against a non-existent bump.

“We’ll tell them we’re in love and we wish to be together – that we have concealed it for so long and cannot wait. Your mother loves me,” he reminds her, “She’ll be pleased. She’ll help us.”

Mircalla knows her father is softened by her mother’s touch, knows how fondly her mother watches when she and Jakob are together and hopes that it’s true. She is going to show in the coming months, she thinks, being as slight as she is – they need to be wed and wed soon, before it can be suspected.

\---

Her mother is beyond pleased, delighted even as she reigns in her husband’s growing ire at his lost chance to give his daughter away. Jakob’s parents were equally pleased, his mother weeping in joy and his father smiling at having the Countess as his daughter-in-law.

Mircalla does her best to look as infatuated as possible, gazing at her best friend in a way that would make her laugh at any other time, and glancing back at her mother with quiet urgency as she tells them, “I cannot bear another moment apart from him.”

Her mother near cries in delight to see her so in-love and Mircalla trembles at the rank disdain she feels for herself for lying to her when she is so warmly embraced, her mother rambling in her ear about how soon they may be married and the ball they should throw for them.

She is so oblivious, she thinks, to the life of her grandchild unfurling quietly against her.

\---

Mircalla grows to love her child.

It has done no wrong and she cannot blame it for her mistakes and she swears never to treat it as she has been treated by her father. She will love her child and cherish every moment it takes to grow within her.

The ball celebrating her engagement is within the next few days and her bump has barely begun to show – looking more like added weight than the curve of a small life. She knows her mother is curious at how tight the bodices of her dresses are, at how difficult Mircalla finds it to wear her corsets, at how hungry she is. She must recognise it on some level, but she is too overcome and distracted to put together the pieces laid before her.

It is a glorious stroke of fate that keeps scandal and hatred from harming the quiet bubble they’ve erected around themselves.

At night, when the sky is full of the glittering diamonds that are stars and her parents are tucked away and the staff dispersed, she sits at her window, quietly recounting the tales woven into the blanket of night to her unborn child, hoping to foster her own love for the unknown within it.

Her fingers press to her stomach unconsciously, tracing the gentle way her skin distends and hugs her tightly, rubbing circles soothingly against it as her mother once did to her back as a child. Jakob scorns her for doing such things in public, though she knows he is merely nervous they’ll be discovered. She knows he understands her subconscious touching by the way he traces the line of her stomach when they’re alone, the way he whispers to her about how scared he is and how much he cares for them both even if it is a different type of love than he believes she deserves.

He is gentle, and sweet, gifting her a locket to honour their commitment, murmuring to her, “ _Um unser Kind zu ehren,_ ” as he gazes fondly at what they’ve done.

He will be a good father, she knows, much better than her own or his could ever be.

She know she is foolish, but she cannot help but think that everything will be alright.

\---

Her heart is racing against her chest, her hands curled around her stomach as she hides behind Jakob.

He shuffles them quickly out of the ballroom, desperate for them to escape, for Mircalla to survive but the only place for them to go is the balcony.

The screams from inside are loud and gut-wrenching, blood splattered across the walls and pooling into lakes on the glossy floor.

It is inlaid into the silken fabric of her skirt and splayed across her porcelain skin and Mircalla can still see her father’s shocked eyes as his wife was ripped open in front of him before his own throat was torn out.

The massacre was so sudden – music and laughter cut off by the high-pitched wailing of a girl bursting through the doors; blood soaked and crying. Maniacal laughter and the shadows had followed her and soon she was not the only one screaming.

No one could escape them, but Mircalla hadn’t truly seen them.

“Mircalla–” Jakob croaks, reaching his hand back to clasp hers as the shadows approached them. She is terrified and for a moment, she swears she can feel her child’s heartbeat racing with hers.

“Well, well, well,” the shadows coo, an old and feminine voice emerging from them before they shift and coalesce into a single woman, tall and regal and horrifyingly dark. “What do we have here?”

Jakob levels his sword at her throat, “Demon,” he snarls, “Step back.”

His hand is firm, unwavering as his voice is and if it weren’t for how well she knows him, and the tight grip of his hand, she would believe he was fearless in the face of this hellion. But she does know him and Mircalla knows that he is terrified but that his fear is for _them_ and not himself.

“How quaint,” the woman offers and before Mircalla knows what’s truly happening there is a tremendous gush of blood against her skin and a staggering weight pushing against her and Jakob’s gasping form is trembling in her arms. His brown eyes look deeply into hers even as the life drains out of them and she barely has time for a tearful sob before he is torn from her and the woman’s hand is wrapped around her throat.

She gasps, clawing at her hand and staring into the black of her eyes as the woman hums, head tilted to the side as if listening.

“How scandalous,” she mutters, amused, ripping Mircalla’s locket from her neck and laughing at the sentimentality “and to think you were going to get away with it.”

She pokes a hand against Mircalla’s stomach and her veins turn to ice, panic gripping her all the more furiously as she struggles.

“But no, darling,” the demon coos at her, “I simply couldn’t let you go to waste. Not after waiting so long for you, my glittering girl.”

That’s the last thing she hears before there is unimaginable pain radiating through her whole being, the slick slide of a clawed hand tearing through everything she is. The woman laughs gleefully as she drops her to the ground and Mircalla falls, lifelessly onto Jakob’s cooling corpse, one hand feebly clutching her gushing stomach and the other weakly grasping his coat.

The tears blur her vision as she lays there, bleeding out before the darkness consumes her.

\---

She wakes to bitter agony, her mind blank and her gums aching. There is nothing and yet everything and she is overwhelmed. The world seems new and glittering, every detail in new colour and vivacity as the clawed hands of death recede.

Everything is grounded in dust when she places a hand on her stomach.

The bodice of her dress is bloodied and filthy, torn and shredded where her murderer’s hand had carved its way through her – a thick mottled scar lining where her clawed fingers had first cut through her flesh.

It is not the only thing the scar marks, she realises, tears filling her eyes as she sees Jakob’s body and the corpses of her guests and parents, as she feels the flat line where her child’s growth had curved. 

She has lost everything.

 ---

Her murderer has no name, but makes her call her Maman and Mircalla hates her though she quickly learns she cannot act against her.

Upon waking and realising what has become of her, that she is now a wretched creature of the night, she had used her strength and her speed against her maker. Passionate in her rage, she had thrust her hand forward with the intent to carve open the same emptiness in the chest of her murderer and been thwarted before she could so much as extend her claws.

“I am ancient and powerful, all-seeing and all-knowing, Mircalla,” Maman had hissed, crushing her hand in a vice grip, “Do not be so foolish as to think that just because I waited for you that I will spare you for such insolence.”

She had, with tears in her eyes and fury in her heart, conceded and Maman had curled a hand under her chin, the same nails that had ripped through her flesh now pressing daintily against her face.

“You are a vampire now, Mircalla, and it is a gift you so readily deserved that I have been kind enough to give you – you should learn to appreciate it.”

With that, her murderer departed, a horde of her vicious children following in her wake as Mircalla slumped to the ground, falling against the corpse of her friend and crying.

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, “I’m so sorry,” for it was her shadow that had extinguished her little light.

\---

Mircalla grieves beneath the smile she wears, mourning always, the vicious end to her happiness as she follows Maman.

She is full of rage against her maker but cannot move against her and so she murders with frivolity – taking sick pleasure in the brutal end she gives to those who would do wrong. The faces of her family dim and fade as the years go by and slowly, so does the life she once led – but never does she truly forget Jakob,

It is hard to remember most details the longer she lives this life, sick and delighted in the slick flow of blood in her mouth, the petrified screams of her victims, but he is one of few things she remembers vividly.

She knows how disappointed he would be in her, how upset he would feel that he had given his life for this shell of the girl he knew and so she drinks and kills and tries to lose herself in the rush of power and emotions she feels as the life drains from her victims.

Sometimes, his memory is merely a fog in the recesses of her mind, as her teeth sink bitterly into the throbbing arteries of some tortured soul. Those times, she leaves their drained corpses on the ground to rot and walks away covered in their blood; uncaring.

Other times, his memory is passionate and fervent in her mind, inescapable as he wonders what he’d done to die for such a monster. Those times, she slumps over their corpses, crying her apologies into their necks and begging forgiveness from people who no longer exist.

\---

Maman allows this for a while, too delighted in her murderous tendencies to acknowledge the truth behind it.

One day it proves too much, Maman hauling her off the corpse of some poor man – a man who probably had children and a family, her mind thinks – dragging her out of the alley as she cries, tears swarming her vision.

She is one of Maman’s favourite’s, she knows, but she is perhaps the least stable of any of her children and that is dangerous for them all.

There is a horde of her siblings waiting for them as they return to their haunt, a large decrepit castle laden with the benefits of their wealth. Maman drags her to the dungeon, every step full of intent, her grip on Mircalla never faltering as she pins her against a wall and her siblings, Maman’s loyal lap-dogs set about chaining her to the wall.

She could break free, she thinks, before the slightest touch of the chains against her skin makes her flinch, hissing.

“That’s right, darling,” Maman mutters, uncaring as she adjusts several of the silver links to linger against Mircalla’s flesh. The silver is bearable if she doesn’t linger on it, but it is not the last of her punishment, no – that would be far too simple.

William, a snide snivelling thing, slithers up to Maman, a leather satchel in his hands that he bestows upon her, bowing.

Maman opens it, and Mircalla is perplexed as to what it is.

“Clamps,” Maman explains, before plunging her hand into Mircalla’s stomach, ripping through her scar and leaving her screaming.

There’s something on her hand, something that burns and bites and aches and she cannot _breathe_ –

The clamps are to hold her flesh open, she learns, to make her bleed and suffer and to haunt her with the memories of her death.

Mircalla stays there for days, or weeks, she doesn’t know, all she really knows is the furious burning in her stomach, the rhythmic _drip_ of her blood hitting the floor.

Her eyes are unseeing, staring at the ceiling above as she relives her death again and again and again – details she’d previously forgotten rising to the surface and making her weep, calling out for Jakob, begging Maman to leave them be, screaming for her child, her _kleines licht_ to be spared.

When Maman releases her, Mircalla slumps to the ground at her feet, starving and empty.

She rips into the first thing Maman drops in front of her, relishing the metallic tang of blood on her tongue.

Maman pets her hair as she feeds savagely.

She feels nothing.

\---

Maman cares for her now, welcoming her into the tight fold, her inner circle, the small group that she considers her children rather than her minions.

She is for a greater purpose, Maman tells her, though Mircalla does not bother to question what purpose.

Her head is foggy now, ever since her punishment and all she can focus on is the craving for blood to satisfy a desperate hunger that never goes away.

Her punishment has left her aching and unravelled, her lust for blood now mingled with the need to survive – death and hunger now synonymous.

She is a lure, Maman tells her, her pretty face meant to bring newcomers to their cause.

It is the first and the last thing Maman tells her about her “purpose”, and Mircalla couldn’t care less as she is sent into the throes of a ball to interact with her first target.

\---

Girl after girl, sweet daughter, kind niece or beautiful ward, Mircalla enchants them all.

They lust for her, she knows; are enchanted by her sharp features and dark eyes, are moved to comfort by her seeming fragility and are swept into her snare with their longing for her passionate words.

She is the master of this game, the same monster even as her name changes and time drags on.

She does not know what the girls are for, what higher purpose she serves, but she knows that she doles out death to all who make her acquaintance.

She doesn’t care.

Until Ell.

\---

Ell is not different from the others – she is much the same. The sweet daughter of a noble man, friendless and lonely, longing for someone to spend time with, to care for and laugh with.

She is like so many others.

But there is more to her, it feels; she stirs things in Mircalla that she had previously kept shut away, repressed deep within herself.

“Carmilla,” Ell calls her, walking slightly ahead of her in town, talking gently with a baker’s child, her eyes warm and dark.

It’s not Ell herself, she realises, that stirs things in her. It’s who Ell reminds her of. Feelings she’d forgotten, memories darkened and blurred by her constant hunger, bubble up – painted in fond lighting and warm colours by the rush of affection she feels with each recollection.

Ell reminds her of all the goodness of her past – of Jakob, of her mother, of her friends and her nurse and her child.

She is light and good and happiness and being near her makes Carmilla remember – it wipes away the twinges of hunger and makes everything so much softer, easier to cope with.

Carmilla is content to spend days in her company, remembering her past as Ell rambles on excitedly – she ignores all feelings of dependency, refusing to acknowledge that her craving for blood is steadily replaced with the craving for the warmth Ell’s presence spurs within her.

But Carmilla does not have days with Ell.

Ell is a target – a sacrifice, and she cannot forget that no matter how much she wants to.

So she calls to Ell, planning to whisk her away in the night, to another country, to a far off land nobody has truly explore.

But plans can change, and so do theirs.

Ell betrays her to her Mother, and Carmilla is forced to her knees as Ell is dragged away – screaming for Maman to release her, begging for her to be spared if only so the cause of her warmth lives on.

But Maman does not see what Carmilla does – she mistakes such need for love and love for the flesh of a fickle human is unacceptable.

“Stone cannot love flesh,” Maman tells her, forcing Carmilla into silver chains and watching, blank faced, as she is dropped into a deep grave, blood from her coffin splashing gently onto the dirt.

“You will learn,” Maman promises her, though she doesn’t know what the lesson is supposed to be, before the coffin closes on top of her and more blood splashes in.

\---

It is over seventy years spent alone in the dark, suffering and silent, starving and dying, before the earth is rent apart and her prison broken open.

She crawls from the earth like the demon she is, weak and shaky-limbed, and collapses onto the first corpse she sees. There are explosions of light all around her, like canon fire and thunder, and she flinches at the loudness. She drains the corpse dry, mourning the warmth more than the life before she skulks off.

She is still in Paris nearly ten years later, still learning the nuances of this age she has been thrust into and still mourning all of the things she has lost, though she has learned to conceal such agony lest she be preyed upon by people less than decent. People like Maman.

She is sitting in a café near the Eiffel Tower, lost in a philosophy book and drinking heavily from a near searing-hot coffee, relishing the warmth it fills her with even though it is only fleeting.

All of her memories are erratic, dark things – the details foggy and less than accurate, overshadowed by her own mindless wanderings from the coffin. It had taken days to separate fiction from reality, to assure herself she was free – but it is even more difficult to separate fact from dream. She has no need for warmth, physically at least, but the fleeting flashes of fever heat are the closest she can get to the warmth of her past – both with Ell and with Jakob.

It is all she has left of the light she lost and she clings to it desperately.

This is where Maman finds her.

She does not notice her at first, hearing someone sit across from her and assuming it is one of countless gentlemen who try their chances with her, until she hears that voice;

“Didn’t I ever teach you how rude it is to read in the presence of others, Mircalla?”

She freezes in her seat, riddled with panic, before she calmly lowers her book, “It’s Carmilla, actually.”

“Well, darling,” Maman says flatly, “It almost sounds as if you aren’t happy to see me. But surely that can’t be right. I have, after all, been eagerly awaiting you after all this time spent apart. I looked for you, when I found your coffin empty – I expected that you’d come find me soon, but you didn’t. I was most disappointed.”

Carmilla grinds her teeth, ignoring Maman’s tutting and the whispered comment about not damaging her fangs, and closes her book, placing it on the table and staring inquisitively at her maker.

“What do you want?”

Her response is immediate – like she truly is a concerned parent but she is not. Carmilla was almost a mother, and her own mother was amazing. She knows genuine care when she sees it and this isn’t it.

“Why, I want you home, of course.”

Maman sighs at her silence, and clicks her fingers. A man nearby rummages briefly in his pocket and produces a small leather satchel, handing it to Maman and inclining his head shortly. He catches Carmilla’s eyes and grins mockingly and she bares her teeth at the rodent that is William.

Maman clicks her tongue, opening the satchel and Carmilla eyes her suspiciously before her heart stops in her chest.

“If you come back to me, Mircalla, back home… You can have _this_ ,”

Her locket.

The one Jakob had given to her.

The one Maman had ripped from her neck before she murdered her and killed her child.

Carmilla hates Maman more than anything.

She loathes her with a passion she hasn’t felt about many things in her entire existence – but she knows that as much as she loathes her, she cannot refuse this – this tie to all the light she’s ever known, this tie that fights back the darkness – _her_ darkness…

Maman grins as she clasps it around her neck.

\---

Carmilla is tired.

She has gone back to leading girl’s to their deaths, handing them over to Maman who grins and chucks her chin like a proud parent, even as the shadows in her slowly overwhelm her.

Perhaps this growing darkness is the true reason for her delight.

Who truly knows?

All Carmilla knows is her new task is slightly unusual. Laura Hollis is not a target – or she wasn’t, not initially, but she is a threat to the sacrifice and threats to the sacrifice cannot be tolerated.

The poor girl, an aspiring journalist of all things, is poking her nose into something she doesn’t have the faintest idea exists – devoting resources and time into finding a girl Carmilla knows is surely gone by now. It’s more dedication than she’s seen anyone to devote to anything in a great number of years.

This girl is going to get herself killed for a friend she barely knows.

It is both noble and so foolish that she can’t be certain whether to be impressed or disturbed by her carelessness.

Regardless, she has a chance – Carmilla will make sure of that.

\---

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Carmilla.”

\---

Laura is beautiful.

It is a simple truth. An honest fact.

And it means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things, but there is one thing that does.

Beauty is a disguise for something that lurks beneath the surface – Carmilla herself is a testament to that. All she needs to do is figure out what that is in Laura, and appeal to it. Convince her to go – to live and survive somewhere where the monsters do not bathe in blood and sacrifice like they do in Silas.

Her mission is seemingly futile, all she really sees beneath the surface of Laura’s pretty face is irritation and passion and foolishness. She is clever, but oblivious and she wears her emotions obviously.

She doesn’t show anything to Carmilla beyond irritation and she uses that to her advantage. She is skilled in annoyance, Maman would tell her, probably as skilled in testing nerves as she is at soothing them in her victims and if annoying Laura is the key to saving her, to giving her a chance at life, then that’s what Carmilla will do.

So she calls her names – not vile ones, as most might, but teasing ones, things that mock her sugar addiction and the saccharine way she acts with that six-foot fire hydrant.

Every sentence is punctuated with things like “Cupcake” and “Sundance” and “Creampuff” and Carmilla can _feel_ her frustration coming to a boil, ready to spill over.

Except when it does, after Carmilla belittles her subjects in her interview to further her search for Betty, Carmilla is unprepared for the vicious barbs she spits;

“…are you really so _damaged_ that you’re incapable of caring about _anything_!”

It doesn’t sound like much of a question – more an assumption than anything and Carmilla is furious, because she cares – she cares and all that that’s gotten her is murdered and raised and tortured and imprisoned. It has left her alone and aching and cold.

She sits on her bed, maintaining her cavalier attitude even after she angrily retorts that Laura doesn’t know anything – that she’s a child in this world with no understanding that things do not always turn out how they’re supposed to – and she craves the comfort of her locket, of the warmth it brings her.

She can’t wear her locket in school, it’s too old, too eye-catching. It will raise too many questions and ruin her façade and if she doesn’t have her looks then she doesn’t have her lure. If she cannot lure then she may as well be dead.

But now more than anything, she wants to wear it, to grip it tight in her fist and read the inscription on the back and feel the warmth that fills her at the words - _Zu ehren unseres Kindes, unser kleines licht. In honour of our child, our little light._

But then Laura is there;

“…Betty deserves better – hell, even _you_ deserve better.”

She says it with an aggression born of passion, something that says she means it. And Carmilla has never believed she deserves anything more than what she’s got – she is a failure as a daughter, as a friend, as a mother. She is even a failure as a vampire.

But Laura thinks she deserves more than what she’s gotten – without even really knowing her, she believes Carmilla deserves better than this world can give her.

It doesn’t mean much – or it shouldn’t, Laura doesn’t know her at all, not even what she thinks she knows – but it _does_.

They don’t say much after that; Laura uploads her inflammatory content onto the Ethernet, a town hall is called and Betty Crocker runs in in a panic. But as she saunters after them, Carmilla smiles, Laura’s stolen cookie in hand.

She feels warm.

\---

She makes an effort to be nicer – covertly of course, because she is still trying to get Laura out of Silas. But she’s realising the chances of her leaving are slim. Non-existence, even, and the best thing she can do is keep watch and protect her if she can’t save her.

Except then Maman is knocking her down, belittling her and she and Carmilla both can hear the scuttling of her roommate and the two floor dons behind the door, eavesdropping and cheering.

Maman’s glare at her roommate’s disdain for is palpable. She is to be revered, not reviled, by those Maman puts her with.

“Take care of it the situation, Carmilla, or I will.”

She nods slowly and Maman grips her chin forcefully, glaring straight at her eyes – still as dark as the night she was murdered, perhaps even darker.

“Do better,” Maman tells her, “Or you’ll be punished.”

Maman presses her claws against her scarred stomach through her shirt, mocking and threatening at the same time.

“And this time, _Mircalla_ ,” She hisses, “your _grounding_ will seem humane.”

The slight suggestion of the coffin tenses every muscle, but it is the glint in Maman’s eyes – the one that tells her she knows nothing of her power – that strikes fear in her and it feels like ice-water is being poured down her back.

More than anything, she craves to feel warm, and so she shuffles into her room, glaring at the bright eyed floor-don and her mad-eyed friend until they leave.

She is furious and sad and scared and embarrassed because here she is, determined to save this infuriating journalist who is oblivious to her niceties – who just wants Carmilla to get what’s coming for her.

Of course Laura has no idea what’s waiting for her – what her Mother will do to her if she fails her again – but the sentiment hurts all the same.

She wonders if she has spent too long in the shadows, to know light. To show light.

She thinks back to the ball – the way the darkness moved and formed Maman. The way her loyal soldiers marched through her ballroom, murdering with glee.

The way her mother fell – split open, and her father screamed as his throat was torn out.

The way their blood washed upon her skin.

The way Jakob fell to the shadows.

The way they saved her for last.

Perhaps it has finally happened.

Perhaps she is one of them now.

\---

Laura Hollis is perhaps the most infuriating person she’s ever met, she thinks.

The journalist has incited yet another Town Hall meeting, one that devolved just as quickly as the last – though this time Maman did not let her leave.

She gripped her wrist firmly, digging her nails in until she was sure Maman had cut into her bone, and dragged her away.

The Dean’s apartment is far more than it seems to the students and buried beneath the wine cellar is a tremendous basement – more dungeon and torture chamber than anything else.

The chains are just as biting and the ache is just as furious when the clamps pull her skin apart.

But this is different.

She is bleeding, delirious and hungry, blurred vision making the shadows seem endless before her.

The chains are the least of her problems when she feels Maman put something _in_ her.

She is panicking before she truly knows what’s happening, fighting to be free as the burn starts up again, and she is screaming, crying –

When she wakes up she feels like she’s Rising all over again – the pain so similar she thinks for a minute she’s died.

Her stomach is sealed shut, scarred over again but the burn is endless and she whimpers, forcing herself to her feet and stumbling forward.

She barely makes it to the quad before she’s collapsing but she doesn’t hit the ground.

There’s a voice calling her name, far away at first and then suddenly beside her, two arms catching her as she falls and she cries out as they press against her stomach.

Laura’s there.

“Carm,” She sounds so panicked and Carmilla wants to help but she can’t exactly focus, “Oh my God, where’ve you been? What happened? I’ve – I’ve, _we’ve_ been looking for you and I just – oh my God–”

 Carmilla tries to stay upright, Laura’s panicked breathing and blabbering telling her exactly how bad she must look, and shuffles forward, almost falling flat on her face if it weren’t for Laura quickly sliding under her arm.

“Whoa hey, no – don’t do that…”

Carmilla tries to articulate herself – desperate to tell her she needs to get indoors, to get blood, to get _help_ – but all that comes out are a slew of slurred mumbles before she sluggishly stumbles into Laura’s side.

“Oh God – oh God, no, Carmilla – Carmilla, stay awake.”

She tries.

But just like with so many other things, she fails.

\--

When she wakes up the next time she’s on her bed, there’s two people standing over her and the burning in her stomach has gotten worse.

She barely manages a groan before she’s desperately clawing herself open –

Someone screams and then there’s hands trying to stop her –

“LaF – LaF there’s something _in there_!”

They let her go, and Carmilla pushes passed the pain, desperate for release, and grips the object firmly, pulling it out of herself despite the burn it causes as it presses into her palm.

It feels like a bag – a leather satchel, though it’s no doubt coated with something – maybe filled with holy water or something equally ghastly.

She throws it away from herself as soon as it’s out, hearing it thud against something before there’s hands pressing against her gaping wound.

There’s rushed footsteps and someone tilts her head back –

Blood pours into her mouth and Carmilla sighs even as she hears Laura freaking out in the background and LaFontaine incredulously asking if she truly didn’t know what Carmilla was after finding the milk container.

Whatever else is said is lost on her as she drinks, but she thinks she’s suddenly a lot more grateful to live in a world full of gingers. Or at least a world with this particular ginger.

“Carm?” Laura wonders, carding a hand through her hair and Carmilla opens her eyes, smiling dazedly at her, and leaning into her hand, completely oblivious to the purring coming from her chest.

“Laura.”

\---

It takes her days to recover.

But through all of them, Laura is there, feeding her and comforting her and helping her around.

She thinks maybe the world doesn’t hate her as much if it’s given her Laura.

She thinks maybe there is some light in her – she must have something if Laura can care about her.

Maybe she’s not one of the shadows yet.

\---

Nearly a week after her torture, Carmilla is almost fully recovered.

For the first time in a week, she wakes up without Laura prompting her, and sits up carefully, tugging up her loose shirt to examine the damage to her abdomen.

The scar has thickened some, still as garish as ever, though now accompanied by several scarred over scratch marks where Carmilla tried to rip herself open.

The blood is long gone, though she smells the remnants of it on her skin.

The blisters and burns from the chains have mostly healed except for little pock marks where they rested.

She looks better.

Laura walks in then, eyes bright and relieved to see her sitting up on her own and she wanders over, offering a careless, “hey” before sitting in front of Carmilla.

She gestures to her shirt and Carmilla barely gets the chance to nod before Laura is pulling it up and examining the scars for herself.

She is not disgusted, Carmilla notices, as she drags her fingers across them, tracing the outline of them and resting softly on the centre of her stomach, where Maman so readily dug her claws into her each and every time.

“Are you…you’re not okay…but feeling, _better_ , I guess?”

“Yeah, Cupcake, little bit.”

Laura smiles tentatively, seemingly relieved at the return of her nickname before her face smooths entirely, her whole posture exuding hesitance.

“…Can you…What happened?” She asks gently, “You just…you really scared me.”

It’s the first time Laura’s said she’s scared of anything and shown it and Carmilla softens entirely, clasping her hand tentatively and squeezing when Laura does.

“And when you – did _that_ ” She gestures to her scar, “I just…Why…What…Why was this in there?”

She reaches up to Carmilla’s shelf and pulls down the little leather satchel. She opens it herself and Carmilla half-sobs half-laughs as the little trinket falls out into Laura’s hand. She picks it up, ignoring the slight burn as she turns it in her hand.

It’s the gem that embellished the pommel of Jakob’s sword.

The one he’d tried to kill Maman with.

Laura looks at her curiously and Carmilla squeezes it in her fist, reaching down the side of her bed and pulling her locket up. She pops it open and places the gem inside and fastens the locket around her neck with a sigh of relief.

“I’m sorry I scared you. But…Well…it’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.”

\---

“So…I was born in 1680, the daughter of the Count of Styria, a duchy of Austria…but honestly, it started back in 1698….I was almost eighteen…but back then…I found it difficult to be myself. I was kind of…homophobic towards myself. I understood my feelings but there was no place for them and so I internalised a lot of things. My friend…my best friend, Jakob…he was much the same. So, like any good cliché, to rid ourselves of our feelings for our own genders…we had sex…and it didn’t work…”

“Is this…”

“Hush Cupcake, story time. But yes, this is going where you think it’s going. We had sex and _I_ … I got pregnant. Which…it’s still a big deal even now, but back then…to have a child out of wedlock, especially considering who I was…I told Jakob – we told each other everything, and this was no different. He proposed that we claim we were in love, that we’d always been in love but afraid of the depth of our feelings…that we rush a wedding before I started showing.”

Laura squeezes her hand when she chokes up a bit, seeming to realise that what she’s asking Carmilla to recount is unbearably difficult.

“I wasn’t prepared to be a mother…to have children…My mother – my birth mother – she was the most wonderful person and she made my father softer, better. She loved Jakob and when we told her we were in love she was so happy for me…She’d always wanted me to find love, though she knew the chances were slim with my father. But Jakob was from a wealthy family and we were already so close…she coerced him into agreeing and we were to attend an engagement party in the few weeks and be married by the time I’d start showing.”

Subconsciously, Carmilla’s hand drifts to her stomach, absentmindedly picking up the slow methodical she used to trace.

Laura’s eyes grow sad, her whole face expressing her heartbreak for Carmilla’s loss.

“You had a child?”

“No.”

_Almost_ , she thinks, _I almost had a child_.

_I almost had a husband._

_I almost had a life._

_A family._

_Happiness._

\---

 Laura sits with her in silence when Carmilla’s finished, she doesn’t leave, though Carmilla can feel her horror and outrage at the knowledge that the Dean killed her so she could have a lure. That she took away everything Carmilla had, killed her unborn child and tortured Carmilla so she could have a way to sacrifice people.

Carmilla would be horrified if she was the one hearing it for the first time but she thinks, somehow, it’s worse that Laura is hearing it. Yes, Carmilla had to live it – she’s still living it. But Laura…tainting that light with how dark and cruel the world has been to her doesn’t seem fair…

“Carm?”

She’s almost shocked to hear Laura speak. She’d expected the silence to last a bit longer than it had.

“That locket…?”

“Jakob got it for me. We didn’t love each other in the traditional sense, but he was my family…I was having his child, we were building a life together and he wanted to honour that.” She can recite the inscription from memory, but even still, she takes it off to show Laura the curved writing on the back, “ _Zu ehren unseres Kindes, unser kleines licht._ In honour of our child, our little light.”

“And…the gem?”

“It was the embellishment from the pommel of his sword. He tried to kill Maman with it to protect us.”

Laura’s eyes are steel and fire as she looks at Carmilla, gripping her hands in her own once the locket is safely back around Carmilla’s neck.

“We’re going to get her, Carm,” she promises, “We’re going to end this.”

Carmilla almost believes her.

\---

Laura gives the basic summary to the Ginger Twins, giving the bare bones to the Amazon who quickly screws up any chance she has with Laura when she goes right to demonising Carmilla.

Carmilla’s chest floods with warmth and her heart – dead as it may be – gives a sudden kick when Laura defends her, kicking Xena out of their shared room and turning to the others in desperate search of a plan.

LaFontaine has apparently been busy while Laura was playing nurse, whipping out a flash-drive containing the consciousness of an unfortunate co-ed who no doubt crossed her Mother, and declaring that his name is JP and he’s a genius.

JP, who speaks like he’s English, quickly starts pulling up information on various weapons that work against “evil-doers”.

Carmilla quickly counteracts that they need something to fight _Satan_ , not some crook with a white cat from some Bond movie, and stifles a smile when Laura laughs gently under her breath.

LaFontaine tries interrogating her, which she admits she would do as well were it not for the fact that she knows nothing. Laura understands somewhat – Carmilla told her of the emptiness, of how she truly didn’t care when Maman first told her of her tasks – she doesn’t commend her for her apathy, she does not pretend to accept it, but she understands that Carmilla didn’t have the capacity to care when she was so wounded – so cruelly abused.

Carmilla tells LaFontaine the lesser version, that she wasn’t interested, that she was too preoccupied to wonder about young girls and their problems with her Mother and pretends she doesn’t care that she paints herself as the villain to anyone that’s not Laura.

She wonders what that says about her – that Laura’s opinion means so much to her that she would try and create light for her to see.

LaF points out that she was a young girl that her Mother wanted, that for any normal person that would’ve been enough to _“interest”_ them and Carmilla retorts that she’s not normal.

She hasn’t known normal for centuries.

It all seems perfectly fine, for the moment.

Until there’s screaming.

And crying.

And a dead co-ed girl that was no doubt one of the marks, splayed out across the quad like a pancake.

\---

Laura is understandably upset, and Carmilla does her best to comfort her with hot chocolate and a serious lack of food thievery.

It is a terrible…loss, she decides, because while someone may have accidently shoved her over the balcony, her death itself was never going to be an accident. She was chosen. She was a mark. She was always going to die.

It just serves to remind her of the frailty of these poor humans.

Yet here they are, risking life and limb to fight.

They’re all going to die, Carmilla realises, as if it hadn’t truly occurred to her before.

It’s this thought that eases all guilt when her Mother possesses Laura.

It’s like agreeing to her service all over again – dangling the one thing that Carmilla cares about in front of her and offering either it or her freedom. Except now she is dangling _Laura_ and Carmilla does more than care about her, she _loves_ her, and she cannot lose her like she’s lost everyone else.

So she agrees – and the big Puppy that Carmilla knows is a member of some frat, and in one of Laura’s classes, is taken instead.

She feels guilt for his death – because he’s already dead in her eyes, but she is too relieved at saving Laura to have it be more than a blip on her radar.

At least, it’s only a blip until Laura finds out.

She is furious and passionate and she tells Carmilla to go. To leave.

She says they’re done, but they didn’t even begin – not really, and yet it still breaks something in her chest, the scar in her stomach flaring up like she’s being stabbed again.

Carmilla agrees, walking passed Laura and grabbing a bag – because she is not leaving without her things if Laura won’t let her in again – and…

She pauses.

Laura’s not looking at her…

She grabs the flash-drive with JP on it and walks out.

\---

The Library is a dangerous place for humans – creatures of the night however, not so much.

The doors open to welcome her and the nearest computer turns on expectantly, either sensing her intent or the presence of the nerd in the flash-drive.  She doesn’t know.

She spends hours researching, looking for anything that might spare Laura and her friends and kill her Mother.

And then – she finds it.

The Blade of Hastur. Forged from the burnt bones of Star Spawn and meant to shatter all that oppose it.

JP is gleeful and Carmilla is pleased – until the Library promptly drops an open book on her head, conveniently about the sword, and Carmilla is faced with reality.

_“Ms Karnstein…?”_ JP asks as Carmilla pales, reading the fine print at the bottom of the page beneath a rendering of the Blade.

“JP…search, the Followers of Hastur,” she requests, tracing a finger over the line that worries her the most;

_“It took twelve of the thirteen followers to bury the Blade of Hastur. The Blade of Hastur shatters all that oppose it – with the condition that the wielder will die, as the Blade of Hastur removes the soul of the wielder.”_

JP’s saddened beeping draws her from her reading and he sadly types his apologies, having come to the same conclusion she has – that using the Blade will kill her.

She wonders if that’s supposed to deter her… It should, she knows, she had a survival instinct practically beaten into her, but it doesn’t. Perhaps she’s accepted that she will die – that she deserves to.

That saving people is worth giving her life to.

_“Ms Karnstein…”_ he types, and Carmilla softly corrects him to ‘Carmilla’, feeling like whispering is the only appropriate way to speak.

_“…The Final Follower of Hastur that survived the group had removed a key element from the Sword.”_ JP types, _“The Blade is useless.”_

\---

Carmilla is understandably enraged.

But she dares not take it out on the Library and settles instead for viciously ripping open a blood-bag with her teeth and guzzling it, wiping her face on the back of her hand and ignoring the blood smear that remains.

She breathes harshly, about to slam the book in her lap closed and then pauses.

It couldn’t be that easy…could it?

But it’s there…in the picture…

The Library hums around her and Carmilla almost smiles as she addresses JP.

“The list…what was his name?”

JP whirs to life again, opening searches and different windows before he pauses, opening a photo and zooming in on the blurred writing.

_“It appears to be in Sumerian. Searching for –”_

“That’s the symbol for farmer – It’s his last name. It’s Bauer.” The Library hums again.

_“Carmilla – are you sure? How could you know that?”_

“Because I was engaged to his descendant – Jakob Bauer. And I know what he took from the Blade of Hastur,” She answers, gleefully opening her locket and letting the gem drop into her hand.

The gem from the pommel.

\---

Carmilla slips JP into the scientist’s room before going to get the Blade of Hastur. She is happy and terrified as she leaps from the cliff hundreds of feet above the ocean and over two thousand feet above the sword.

The water is freezing cold around her, but she barely feels it on her skin as she swims deeper, too focused on her locket and the warmth of the gem inside – the way it heats up and begins to glow the closer she gets, like a guiding light, like a beacon.

The cavern is entirely un-extraordinary except for the stone altar the Sword protrudes from.

The Blade glows in the darkness, gleaming and beautiful emitting a wave of heat that sends chills down her spine.

She is so enchanted, and she wonders, absently, if this is what it was like for all the people she lured – to be consumed by something so otherworldly.

She thinks this is somewhat what it feels like with Laura – the way the girl enchants her, not with her beauty but with her kindness.

The gem glows brightly in her locket and Carmilla is nearly sure she hears it whisper into the water, _“Home”_.

She is glad to provide such service.

Clasping the hilt in her hand, she pulls, gently but the sword doesn’t move – even as she applies more force. The gem pulses within her locket and Carmilla takes it out, hissing gently with understanding as it burns her fingers where she touches it. She presses it into the gaping hole in the pommel – ignoring the way its shape reminds her of the scar in her torso and pulls the hilt again. She is gentle, and therefore shocked at how easily the sword comes free.

Like it’s been waiting to be used.

The cavern rumbles around her and Carmilla swims away, heading for the surface as the sword glows, the gem a swirl of crimson in the depths.

\---

Laura is not a person who waits around, Carmilla discovers, when she barges into their room, sopping wet, the sword in hand.

She’s riding a high, though she knows it’s time-sensitive by the way the light of the gem twists and coils through her veins and up her arm.

A brief look at her latest update tells Carmilla that hell is being released on campus – quite literally – and she rushes off, not caring for the details.

Light seems to bounce off of her into the endless dark of the sky and Carmilla wonders if this is what it’s like.

Being light.

Being good.

It feels much heavier than the shadows.

\---

They’re in the pit – where the sacrifices go – and Carmilla rushes in, in time to drag Laura away from the edge.

Her hordes of siblings have been diminished somewhat – partly  by her Mother’s hand over the years and partly by Laura and her dweebs in the last few moments.

It’s almost admirable, if they weren’t about to be brutally murdered.

The light from the pit is blinding, but Carmilla doesn’t care, with the Blade in hand, it doesn’t affect her.

Her Mother steps from the edge, an indignant squawk escaping her as the shadows amass behind her.

She shreds through the masses of Laura’s friends and Carmilla races to meet her, the sword burning with warmth where she grips it tightly – both reassuring and deadly.

She slices the Blade through the shadows and they part and burn and meld together into her Mother; claws ready and fangs bared, furious and evil.

She makes threats, vicious wordy things that Carmilla couldn’t care less for but then again, she’s going to die no matter what happens, so she supposes that’s to be expected.

But she’s taking her murderer with her.

Maman swings for her and she counters, slicing and swinging the Blade with ease she didn’t expect. She wasn’t exactly sword trained, but it’s like the sword is guiding her to victory.

Her Mother hisses every time she’s sliced and Carmilla feels that blood lust from centuries ago coil in her stomach like a serpent ready to lunge.

Then suddenly there’s an arrow in Maman’s shoulder and in Carmilla’s back and she stumbles forward. Maman catches her, spinning her around and holding Carmilla’s hands on the Blade of Hastur, positioning it to impale her in the stomach as she hollers, “ _ENOUGH!”_ into the cavern.

The walls shake and Carmilla’s glow is fading at the edges, the red light in her veins slowly crawling forward as if reluctant to take her before her job is done.

The Amazons have arrived with the Dude-bros, the Summer Society and the Zetas unleashing hell upon Carmilla’s vampire brethren. They’re the source of the arrows, she knows – though the one in her back came from the ginger goliath.

Laura looks at Carmilla desperately, and the Dean cackles sickly, “Freeze – or she’s dead.”

She nods her head to her Coven of soldiers and they slowly approach and Carmilla realises, rather suddenly, that Maman doesn’t _know_ – she doesn’t know Carmilla’s dying even as she holds the sword, she doesn’t know that the sword is sucking out her soul – neither does Laura.

She can end this – right now.

It’s just about adding to the scar.

She catches Laura’s eyes, “You know,” she mouths to her, before pulling the sword through her stomach.

The Blade burns like hell-fire, plunging through her and Carmilla cries out – hearing Maman’s screech as it goes through Carmilla and into her.

Laura screams and Maman bellows before they stumble back, falling into the light, sword point jutting from Maman’s spine.

They fall into the light, and the darkness consumes her.

\---

She is drifting aimlessly.

She wades through the dark like its water and feels the grasping hands of death curl around her ankles gently.

A hand clasps hers, small in comparison and she looks up and sees him –

“Jakob,” She cries.

He wipes her tears and holds her hand tightly in his and hugs her, kissing the side of her head.

He is so warm – just the same as he was in life and she clutches him tightly and feels like the girl he knew – like Mircalla.

“She’s beautiful, Mircalla,” he whispers, proud and grinning.

“I know,” she mutters bashfully, before saddening, “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he replies, “but you needn’t be sorry.”

She wants to ask why, wonder what he knows that she doesn’t when she feels it, a hand smaller than hers slipping into her own and squeezing, as the darkness around them is overwhelmed with incomprehensible light.

She goes to look down, seeing only a head of dark hair and two warm brown eyes –

“Goodbye Mircalla, live well.”

\---

She sputters, sitting up winded and choking on the blood in her mouth before she swallows.

There’s chattering though she can’t truly make it out and she sits up, groaning in pain as she places a hand over her aching stomach.

Someone tackle hugs her and she braces herself, sighing as she’s released and she sees her.

Laura.

She’s alive.

The feeling that floods her is amazing and she nearly smiles just from that alone when she finally picks up Laura’s teary-eyed rambling.

She leans forward, grinning still as she presses her lips to the other girl’s for the first time.

It’s light and warm and full of hope and laughter.

And it’s perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know your thoughts :)


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